SUGAR ISLAND, Maine — There are no blueprints to go by. The designs of two different traditional Wabanaki homes being built on this island in the Penobscot River have changed as the available wood — ash, maple, basswood and birch — has dictated, said former Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Barry Dana, who is helping to construct them.
“We’re not fighting the stuff anymore, we’re here to listen to it,” Dana, who is from Solon, said Sunday as he and Penobscot guide John Neptune used basswood straps to tie large pieces of birch bark to a 14-foot wigwam’s ash sapling frame.
The two men are building a large birch-bark wigwam and an adjacent birch-bark longhouse as part of a project to create a traditional Wabanaki village on the island, which is located near Greenbush and accessible only by boat. The Wabanaki people include four Maine native American tribes — Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and MicMac.
Once completed, the village will be used to pass on the tribe’s culture to future generations and as a stopping point for river tours that will feature local native traditions, Penobscot Nation Cultural Director James Francis said Monday.
“We want a place where people can enjoy the river, where Penobscot guides can share stories of our culture and our traditional ways,” Francis said.
Plans are to offer river tours next summer and use the two new structures for eco-tourism. The other side of Sugar Island already is home to a dozen lean-to campsites.
“People can create their own package — do they want drumming and singing, do they want to learn about native and medicinal plants, do they want to learn how to make a basket, to make a birch bark canoe?” Francis said.
Removal of the Great Works Dam in Bradley and the Veazie Dam and improvements at the Milford Dam, all part of the Penobscot River Restoration Project, have opened up the river and people from across the U.S. have come to use it, thanks in part to events, such as the Penobscot River Whitewater Nationals Regatta, held in July.
“We wanted a place on the river to show them what we have to offer,” Dana said.
The Penobscot Nation Cultural Center received a $13,500 grant to fund the construction of the first two traditional structures, and they plan to add a birch bark structure every year to continue the learning process.
Dana was selected to work on the project because he builds birch bark canoes and makes baskets and other traditional items from the material. In 2010, he built a similar but smaller wigwam with his wife and daughter at the Hudson Museum inside the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine with the help of a couple of engineering students.
He and Neptune hand cut each sapling, stripped each piece of bark used as rope and collected more than 100 large squares of birch bark needed to build the two structures.
“We’re guided by ancestral wisdom,” Dana said, adding there also has been a lot of “trial and error, believe me.”
Neptune arrived Sunday morning with a dozen ash saplings strapped to the top of his minivan that were unloaded and reloaded into canoes for the quarter-mile trip upriver over a small set of rapids to the village.
“It’s like traveling back in time,” Neptune said as he paddled toward the wigwam and longhouse, which are visible from the river.
“The project calls for two structures built in a traditional manner,” Dana said. “We’ve got the wigwam mostly finished. We just have to tweak it and tighten it up. The second one, the longhouse, is completely different.”
The longhouse, similar in shape to a quonset hut, is easier to construct and can be lengthened as needed, which has led the two longtime friends to come to the conclusion that wigwams were probably built small and longhouses were used for larger families, Dana said.
“If you kept it up, it should last as long as a regular house,” Neptune said. “But there is a lot more maintenance than a regular house.”
The two are pleased with their traditional structures, even though modern screws were used to hold together strappings on the wigwam. They are, however, worried about the winter snow.
“That’s a big concern — snow load,” Neptune said.
If people were living in the native homes, they would be able to knock the snow off the tops to prevent damage. The two native builders said they’ll have to wait until spring to see if their work is strong enough to withstand the Maine winter.
After spending so much time working on the two hand-made structures, “It kind of feels like my second home,” Neptune said. “The most important part is giving the kids an opportunity to come up and see it and be a part of it as well.”
“It just promotes a lot of good stuff, and maybe we can make a little money in the meantime to keep [our] programs going,” Dana said.